This was my day: I went to the dentist. I spent an hour being interviewed on end-of-life issues. And I listened to four tax experts commiserate about the massive fiscal hole we have dug for ourselves and how we can shovel our way out. I’ve had better. Yet, the Tax Policy Center panel, called Desperately Seeking Revenue, generated more than the usual budget gloom and doom. True, TPC co-director Rosanne Altshuler presented some truly hair-raising projections of the depth of the problem: In sum, she made two points: 1) Unless we act, we will add $11 trillion over the next decade to the national debt, roughly doubling what we already owe. 2) It is not possible, in any reasonable world, to close that gap by hiking income tax rates alone. Thus, the title of both her paper on the subject (written with colleagues Bob Williams and Katherine Lim) and the panel: Desperately Seeking Revenue.

Watching the made-for-TV Olympics the other night, I could not help but wonder: Why does the federal government subsidize the United States Olympic Committee by granting it tax-exempt status? The question is especially interesting because The Washington Post reports the USOC may soon ask for direct government support.

Last week Fox Business News asked me whether it was a problem that nearly half of all Americans paid no federal income tax last year. I’ve gotten that question repeatedly since I reported the Tax Policy Center estimate that 47 percent of all taxpayers and 55 percent of the elderly and families with children paid no federal individual income tax in 2009. (Remember, however, that most people who pay no federal income tax do pay Social Security, Medicare and other federal taxes as well as state taxes.) Still, reporters and others want to know if it is fair that so many people pay “no” tax?

I know it is risky so early in the year, but I have a nomination for the worst idea of 2010. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), wants to make Social Security retirement benefits available beginning at age 60. Temporarily. To create jobs. His logic appears to be this: If one million people between 60 and 62 (the current age for early Social Security eligibility) retire early, they will open up one million new opportunities for younger people. Somehow, in Kucinich-math, this creates jobs.

Tax reform proposals are busting out all over. Today, senators Ron Wyden (D-OR.) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) rolled out their version of a simplified, relatively low-rate individual and business tax system. The plan retains the basic structure of the income tax and has the feel of the landmark 1986 tax reform. Yet, it tilts towards a consumption tax for businesses. As in ‘86, the goal seems to be revenue-neutral reform, rather than an attempt to raise more revenue by restructuring the Tax Code. Depending on your point of view, this could be either a missed opportunity or a sensible idea.

TPC has just completed a major analysis of the tax provisions of President Obama’s 2011 budget. The proposals look a lot like last year’s, and, not surprisingly, we again found that most taxpayers would get a tax cut under the Obama plan, relative to current law. Nearly 80 percent would pay less tax in 2012. That’s assuming that the Bush tax cuts expire as scheduled in 2010 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is allowed to bite millions more taxpayers. (We look at 2012 to get beyond the worst effects of the great recession and any transition issues.)

President Obama’s new $950 billion health plan would impose a new “payroll” tax on investment income, and keep a watered-down version of the Senate proposal to tax high-cost health plans.

Economists can't seem to agree about whether the corporate tax falls on the rich or the poor. We pretty much concur that sales and payroll taxes are regressive and that income and estate taxes are progressive, but we argue endlessly about whether the burden of the corporate tax falls more on the wealthy or the middle class.

Is America's banker turning bearish? This week, Japan eclipsed China as the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities. This news comes one week after it was reported that China may sell-off some of its U.S. Treasury holdings to punish Washington for selling weapons to Taiwan. These developments offer more evidence that Beijing is growing less willing to continue buying and holding U.S. debt.

So far, two tax plans aimed at boosting hiring this year are on the table: one from President Obama and another from senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Which would do a better job at increasing employment? I’m betting on Obama’s.